The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #82753   Message #1523664
Posted By: CarolC
18-Jul-05 - 06:46 PM
Thread Name: Explosions in London
Subject: RE: Explosions in London
Sorry, Bill, but even this bit from your link conflicts with your use of the term "most". The percentages given here are 43 percent coming from religously affiliated groups and 57 percent coming from secular groups.

"'Dying to Win" draws on a thorough database of all suicide attacks recorded since the contemporary practice was born during the Lebanese civil war in the early 1980s: a total of 315 incidents through 2003, involving 462 suicidal attackers. Of the 384 attackers for whom Pape has data, who committed their deeds in such danger zones as Sri Lanka (where the decidedly non-fundamentalist, quasi-Marxist Tamil Tigers have used suicide attacks since 1987 in their fight for a Tamil homeland), Israel, Chechnya, Iraq, and New York, only 43 percent came from religiously affiliated groups. The balance, 57 percent, came from secular groups. Strikingly, during the Lebanese civil war, he says, some 70 percent of suicide attackers were Christians (though members of secular groups)."